Finding Equilibrium

I've been struggling with the ideas of maturity versus numbness lately, and also with selfishness versus closure.



In some sense, I find it supremely selfish that we're all so obsessed with the idea of demanding "closure" from the chapters of our lives. Life is not a novel; it does not divide into neat vignettes. The desire for closure is (far more often than not) simply a desire to extract a pound of flesh. We want to watch someone bleed so we can feel better, and once we feel better, moving on is simple, so we think to ourselves that this "closure" is necessary.



Really, it's not necessary. We can move on without hurting anyone else; it just takes more effort. It require more of us to move past our own hurt without inflicting it on anyone else; it requires us to give up revenge and accept our own responsibility in whatever happened.

Here's a free insight: you are never an innocent bystander in your interpersonal relationships. A relationship is by definition a situation of give-and-take, and it always, always takes two to tango. Sometimes you give more, sometimes you take more, sometimes its an even-steven exchange, but all those various gray hues are decisions you make. You decide how much to give in your relationships, and how much to take. You decide how much to put up with, and when you throw screaming fits, that's your decision to.

Own those decisions. They are yours, and if you don't like what you get out of them, you have to own them in order to change your behavior.

On the flip side, sometimes people just do treat you really shittily. I struggle with this. I would like, always, to believe that people are their best selves. I am Dr. Pangloss. And so when I realize that someone is behaving in less than an ideal fashion, I struggle. My kind and gentle (ha!) nature would like to forgive them, show them why what they did hurt me, and believe that from that point, they'll stop doing whatever it is.

Yeah, that pretty much never works out.

So, I find myself struggling with the desire to extract pounds of flesh. Hurting someone makes the lesson stick. It's a common trope: I can't count how many movies I've seen in which the generally benevolent teacher inflicts pain on the hapless student so that the pupil will remember the very important lesson being imparted. I mean, it makes sense: we learn not to stick our hand in the fire because doing so HURTS. If I really want to teach someone a lesson, I should hurt them.

I really hate that idea.

Also, I think it's a copout. You can teach without pain. Pain is the easy way, but certainly not the only way, and really, pain doesn't always work.

Then again, sometimes I think that by not forcefully expressing myself when something wrong happens, I'm allowing that ever-threatening numbness to creep in and over take me. Perhaps it's just that I don't care enough to try. I don't care enough to let people know when I'm hurt. I don't care enough to let people know when I think what they've done is wrong.

Numbness is just as much the enemy of equilibrium as anger. Numbness is just as much a threat to a balanced life. In repudiating anger, am I merely giving in to numbness?

I don't know.

Chickenshit.

I promised, promised, promised myself that I wasn't going to blog about my personal relationships anymore. I really, really did. And I meant it.

It can be seen as more than I little passive aggressive, after all. And in truth, it probably is a little passive aggressive. It's a passive way of expressing my discomfort and anger with the things that go on, a way of expressing my negative feelings while still avoiding all conflict.

I'm conflict-avoidant. Really. I'm not a screamer. I don't pitch fits. I'm really quite meek, a little white mouse. I sit and I nod and I smile and I try to understand what's being put before me, not just what's said but also it's subtext. I try to understand not just the words that are being presented to me, but the context of the lies.

There are always lies. Everyone lies. I lie, although I like to think that I lie less often and less virulently than a lot of people. Maybe that's just me lying to myself; I'll let other people make that call.

But I think I have to break my promise not to write about my personal relationships anymore. I have no other outlet. Some things have to be said, and since I'm a chicken shit, this is how I say them. Perhaps, at some point, I'll get over my pathological need for harmony enough to say them to the offender's faces, and I truly hope I get to that day. But right now, in this moment, I need to say something, and this is the only medium available to me.

Here's the absolute, God's-honest truth: EVERYONE LIES.

And, contrary to what my meek and smiling and understanding face says to you, I am not taken in by your lies. I know you're lying. I'm allowing you to do so.

I know everyone lies, and therefore, I trust no one. I don't trust you. I don't trust you when you say you really like to spend time with me. I don't trust you when you refer to your "ex"-girlfriend. I don't trust you when you tell me that you'd like nothing more than the opportunity to take care of me. I don't trust you when you tell me your marriage is in good shape. I don't trust you when you tell that you're not angry about anything. I don't trust you when you tell me that money's fine.

I know when I'm being lied to. By everyone.

Some of these utterances are the most egregious of falsehoods; others are merely stretches of what is probably a pretty solid grain of truth. They are still ephemeral promises of a solidity that will never materialize. You are not fooling me. I will not cling to your promises like rafts in the vast ocean so that I can drown later on when they disintegrate as I continue to try to clutch the dreams you've given me in cold, cramping, deadened fingernails.

I trust no one. I trust no one's words.

If you want my trust, you earn it. You earn it through action. You earn through unflinching honesty that is ugly and scarred and scary and embarrassing. You earn my trust. It's not an easy task: I'll tell you up front. Many would, I am sure, claim that it's impossible. It's not.

It is possible for me to trust. But you have to quit lying to me if you want that to happen. I am capable of unimaginable feats of forgiveness; I promise you. I have ben forgiven for some pretty awful things in my life, and I know what a gift it is and what a benediction. Because I know, I can forgive. Because I have been shown that it's possible to let go of awful things, I know that I can do it.

I've forgiven people some pretty awful things, too. I don't hold grudges. It would be disingenous to say that the things others have done to me have left me unaffected, because without a doubt my experiences have colored my extreme distrust for the words of others. But holding myself protected and remaining angry are two very, very different things.

I let go of anger a long, long time ago.

So this is what I'd like from the world: stop it. Just quit telling me falsehoods and half-truths and let me have the ugly, unvarnished, unflattering truth. I can handle it. And I'll love you even more for it than I would for the prettiest, most comforting lie.

Things Unsaid

There's always things that we don't say. There's always things that just end up forever locked in our throats, because saying them would be inappropriate. Maybe saying them would be pouring salt in wounds, maybe saying them would reopen chapters best left closed. Maybe saying them would be simply childish and petty on the part of the sayer, and no one wants to be perceived that way.

But still, we all know the things we want to say. We've got them planned out and ready to go, should the perfect opportunity to throw them down ever arise. Not that it will. But we like to be prepared.

I'm a nerd, ok? I'm a girl scout. I'm always prepared. Sue me.

So here's my list. It's the current list, which means that it'll change slowly as situations develop and life grinds on. It's already changed considerably. Five years ago, none of these statements were on my list, and in the interim, I've actually managed to utter some things aloud, thereby scratching them off.

"You're a child. Grow up. I may have my issues, but I'm pretty darn glad I don't have to deal with yours anymore. You're a bad person and a bad manipulator, and all you've got going for you is a nice face and bank account."

"You, also, are remarkably childlike. Grow the fuck up. Do you really think I don't know you're lying? For someone that likes to compliment my intelligence, you sure do think pretty lowly of my critical thinking skills."

"I love you, but you drive me insane. I need far more time alone than I get. Would it kill you to go out every now and again?"

"Ignoring people is not a reasonable strategy for weaseling out of your commitments. When you say you're going to do something, either do it, or own the fact that you're not going to do it. I grow tired of being disappointed."

"The hoops you make everyone jump through are ridiculous, and no one ever does the course to your satisfaction anyway. I'm done playing."

"I love you, and I want very much for you to be happy, but we're probably never going to be close again. We're just both too bad at keeping in touch."

"Come home. Come home now. I miss you."

"We've run through our chances. You're not happy, but I'm not going to make you happy. That's something you're going to have to do for yourself. So go do it."

"You know, this could work. If both of us stopped being such chickenshits. Too bad we're both such chickenshits."

I find it therapeutic just to put things out there. I'm sure it's also passive aggressive, but whatever. I never claimed not to have issues of my own.

Fairy Tales.

I still believe in fairy tales.

Ridiculous, non? Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. You'd think my history of incredibly poor decision-making would have cured me of that particular childish desire years and years and years ago.

But, the truth is, I still believe in happily-ever-after. I still believe in forever and sunsets and growing old and grand gestures and the power of love and romance and all that other 10-year-old girl stuff.

And I want a fairy tale. I want happily ever after. I want a relationship that's going to last forever, or at the very least, the rest of my lifetime.

My Prince Charming appreciates my cooking, and is perfectly willing to do the dishes. He'll indulge my ridiculous desire for low-key drama because he loves me. In return, I'll put up with whatever childishness he's still holding on to, because let's be honest, we're all little children somewhere in our emotional selves. Somewhere there's that one thing that everyone else outgrew that we just didn't. That one idea that was implanted by deep social conditioning that most people manage to expunge, but we just didn't. That one that took root real deep and isn't getting ripped out anytime soon because it's become part of the foundation of our identity.

There are so many of these messages that not everyone gets stuck with the same one. Some people get indoctrinated with gender roles, that men work and women cook and that's love. Some people get indoctrinated with holidays, that birthdays and Valentine's Day and the like are the real measure of love. Some get stuck with ideas about what good sex is, or what good sex is not. Some get materialism in full force, the "white-picket-fence" syndrome.

These are all pieces of baggage that individuals bring to relationships.

Me? I get stuck with commitment. Somehow, somewhere, I picked up this idea of committing and committing fully and that as long as two people meet as themselves and remain fully committed, they can work out anything. You ever seen that movie with Heather Graham? In a way, I'm like her. I'd really like to believe that if I ever get married again, I could get a tattoo for a wedding ring. I'd really like to find someone that understands that about me.

I guess you could say that "I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine."

And maybe that's really the key to a good relationship. We all have these little bits of social more lodged in the crevices of our brains; so much gets thrown at us that something sticks, no matter how rational and above it you like to think yourself.

So the key is finding someone whose bits of accumulated peer-induced flotsam match up with your own.

Not real helpful as a revelation, is it? No. I thought not.

And still.

I had a personal revelation today. It is as follows:

Consciously protecting one's heart hurts just as much as letting it get pierced.

Seriously.

I gave this whole "Play it cool, don't lose your head, don't let yourself get too involved, don't open up until it's a mutual thing" thing a shot. I really did. I even hedged some bets, kept myself occupied with a whole slew of new projects (bread baking, cheesemaking, apron sewing, butter churning, and a variety of baked desserts) and a whole stable of interesting people.

And still, and still, and still.

My fenced and guarded heart bleeds. It just happens to ooze behind a wall this time, where it's harder to see and also harder to bandage.

So guess what? I was right all along, even though I hate that statement more than anything right now.

Wanderlust.

I have persistent, pernicious, well-documented and terribly inconvenient wanderlust. It started when I was 12. I begged and begged my parents to take me somewhere, or (better yet) send me somewhere.

My mother understood. I get this from her, after all. We think it's genetic.

They sent me to Australia and New Zealand. Since that trip in the summer of 2008, I have proceeded to visit Spain, Morocco, the Bahamas, Paris, Germany, Luxembourg, London, Mexico and Colombia.

In the last 9 months alone I've been to Mexico and Colombia, after having not left the country since my daughter's conception in the fall of 2007. I have laughingly nicknamed 2010 "The Year of the Return of the World Traveller."

I want to run away. Right now.

I want to buy a plane ticket, any plane ticket, the cheapest plane ticket I can find, and hop aboard and not look back. At least not for awhile. At least not until the wandering beast inside that seems to be insatiable is temporarily tamed.

I want to climb Kilimanjaroo and see Baku. I want to wander Copenhagen and Amsterdam, learn to dance cumbia on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, visit the jungles of Ecuador. I want to see Johannesburg and return to Tangiers. I want to sit on the sea steps of Barcelona and go dancing in Munich. I want to ride a scooter through the streets of Taipei and walk along the Great Wall.

And I want to do it all right now. The effort involved in keeping myself seated in this desk chair is superhuman. I squirm, I dance, I do anything and everything that makes me look ridiculous because if I don't, I will get up and run away. RUN. AWAY.

I want to see the world. I want to drink it in and love every dirty, shining, beautiful piece of it.

And right now, I want to do it right now. Who's in?

Food IS Art.

I think I just have read the only letter-to-the-editor in the history of my reading letters-to-the-editor that has honestly and truly offended me. Two weeks ago, the New York Times Magazine published an entire issue dedicated to food and the ways in which food can build community. This letter was written in response to that issue, and published this week (about halfway down the page):

In dissecting the nation's eating habits, the Food Issue presents a smorgasbord of obsessions that are inevitably linked to the astounding fact that from the early 1960s to the present, obesity in the United States has risen to well over 30 percent, from 13 percent. Worse yet, abdominal obesity has risen in both women and men. These unsightly trends suggest that America's obsessive interest in eating is dangerously abnormal. Typically the plight of our nation's waistline is blamed on low-cost fast food and ever-present junk food. But clearly the malfeasance is broader and extends to more sophisticated, high-priced epicurean foods.

This end of the food spectrum needs to take more responsibility for the weight problem and start warning consumers that the tiramisu and T-bones are injurious to their health. Better still would be recognizing that food is not an art, that eating is not a sport, and that conquering obsession is good food for the soul. [Emphasis mine.]

Well, thanks for that lovely expose on what's really wrong with our eating culture. It's not the abundance of junk food or the high-calorie, high-sugar fast-food that's constantly being shoved at us in advertisements. It's not the fact that most of our meat and dairy comes from factory farms where conditions are deplorable, animals are genetically modified to produce more, fattier, and faster, and antibiotics are as necessary to life as water. It's not the culture of eating without thinking that's to blame for the myriad nutritionally-based problems that people suffer.

No, none of that.

It's those darn foodies and their epicurean ideals. It's those darn people that want to bake their cake and eat it, too. Preferably after having consumed a dinner that they prepared from scratch using fresh & locally sourced comestibles.

What we all really need to do is realize that food is not art, and that we would all be much better off eating nothing but bran flakes, sprouts, and water. Then, we could all be perfectly healthy and painfully skinny models of productivity that have conquered our need for comfort in life. Oh, and we'll be aesthetically pleasing to the fat-phobic.

"Food is not an art." I don't think I've ever been quite this offended. Food IS, in fact, a beautiful, primal, fascinating art form. To cook is play with color like a painter, with texture like a sculptor, with sound like a musician, with mathematics, with flavor. Cooking is the ultimate art form, creating pieces that indulge every single sense we have, not merely one or two of them.

In my kitchen, I am an artist. Forgive me, sir, that my obsession with the creative and curative power of food so offends you, but don't you dare detract from what I do with my hands and my time and my energy and my brain. How dare you denigrate my art form to such a degree. How dare you tell me that my life is unhealthy because I put care and thought into the morsels I put in my mouth, those bites that sustain me not just physically but also emotionally and spiritually? Yes, it's my thought that is the culprit, the root of all evil in the culinary and gastronomic worlds. Thinking is always, always the enemy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go make a pie crust. And start cleaning beans and potatoes. Food brings the family together, after all, and I've got 10 to feed for dinner this evening. Ten happy people with a little belly fat between them that enjoy a good meal and appreciate the art that is good food.

Slut.

I was eleven the first time I was called a slut. Sixth grade. I rode a big yellow school bus to school, and it was a long ride, sometimes 45 minutes. There were a group of us that were attending this school that was on the other side of the city, and we were the first ones picked up and the last ones dropped off.

There was a boy on the bus, an eighth grader. Jesse. He was beautiful, and counter-culture, and really, really smart. I was pretty much in love with him from day one. Sometime during that year, he noticed me. And we started to sit together on the bus, bumping legs while we lurched over streets riddled with potholes and talking about everything that an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old can possibly think of to talk about.

One afternoon, we were sitting a bit farther back in the bus than usual; it must have been the first available open seat. About halfway through the ride, everyone left on the bus was sitting in front of us. This girl, I don't even remember her name, came and planted herself in the seat in front of us and started asking questions about our relationship. Were we going steady? Was he my boyfriend?

I had no idea what to say. I had barely even thought about kissing this boy. I just really liked the way he looked, and the way he smelled, and the things we talked about and the confidence with which he made his pronouncements. It was a very quiet confidence. I think he was taken aback, as well, because he also didn't know what to say. He deflected. She would not be deterred.

After five minutes of badgering or so, she reached into our seat, picked up his hand, and put it on my breast.

No, really. We both kind of looked at it there. Neither one of us felt much about it, so after a few seconds, he moved it away, back to his lap.

But this girl whose name I can't remember started screaming and hollering about how I'd let Jesse feel me up in the back of the bus.

By the time I got to school the next day, I was that girl. That girl that let boys feel her up in the back of the bus. I got called a slut a lot that year, and the next.

When I was fourteen, I went on a chaperoned trip to Australia and New Zealand with 40 other kids. The chaperones were four schoolteachers. The senior chaperone was a woman named Mrs. Sphar, and Mrs. Sphar had very definite ideas about how children should behave. I did not conform to her ideas, although by most any objective measure, I was a good kid. I got good grades, I hadn't yet tried any drugs nor had I even gotten drunk. I was a free-spirited little thing, and I had a sharp tongue and a distaste for authority, but I was a good kid.

I dyed my hair on that trip, something I'd done for the first time a year earlier with the blessing and help of my mother. (I have always felt it a travesty of genetics that my hair does not naturally have much red tint.)

Mrs. Sphar did not like the new hair color.

She told me I looked like a street walker, and demanded that I remain in my hotel room, washing my hair, until the dye washed out.

When I was eighteen, I met a man that I married less than a year later who liked to call me a whore when I smiled at grocery clerks and gas stations attendants. He never did forgive me for not being a virgin when we met, and was convinced that I was going to sleep with anything that moved because I was already spoiled, anyway.

Those are just the highlights.

I have difficult time, still, with having my sexual appetites and choices derided. "Whore" will as often as not reduce me to tears; "slut" makes me turn red and shaky with shame and rage.

I know that it's all the rage these days to reclaim these labels that have been placed on women that have taken their sexual lives into their own hands and make them positives. Women are supposed to wear these insults with pride, like precious pearl necklaces bedecking their throats, like pins of platinum pinioned on lapels.

I call bullshit.

The words are meant to be insults. You can tell me not to internalize them as often as you like, and maybe I should hear it, but don't tell me that I'm supposed to like being called a slut. It's meant to cut. It's meant to demean. It's meant to tell me that my worth lies between my legs and every time I let someone in there, I'm demeaning myself and lowering my worth.

So don't use those words. Don't play with them. They are not playful words; they are weapons. And most certainly, don't tell me that I'm supposed to like being bludgeoned with them.

Tingles.

It's the tingles that get me, everytime.

Little electric sparks run up and down my spine every time my phone buzzes after 9 pm.
It's those tingles. A live wire runs down the middle of every vein, making the very cells in my blood pulse a rhythm counterpoint to the bass of the heart. Yes, those tingles. I adore those tingles.

That there is no shock when my fingers graze your skin is a source of wonder. Perhaps it merely means I spend too much time letting fingertips wander over the contours of your bones, those solid pieces of calcified tissue lying under the surface, stretching skin into shapes that can only be learned by touch.

I want to learn.

I think I've learned your jaw. I think I realized last night that my fingertips anticipate the curves and muscles, the stretches and the flexes. I think I could trace your jaw in the air even if you weren't in front of me.

Time to move on, lower. Collarbones and shoulders, and then biceps, elbows, forearms. After that, the chest, with its pectoral plates. And on and on, memorizing each bit with tingling fingertips.

Dumb Girl

I'm all up in my head, rethinking your feminism.

Everyone knows girls play dumb. It's a pretty fool-proof manipulation tactic: the hapless damsel requires assistance. I play dumb fairly frequently, or at least I take on a position of weakness in relation to whoever I'm interacting with.

But do I really do this because I'm female? I'm not so sure.

Certainly, it would be an easy out to point to pressure that girls come under to conform to standards of femininity that have been seriously influenced by Victorian mores of silent, subservient women. It would be easy to cop out with some pithy denunciation of society at large that told me for most of my childhood to sit down and shut up.

But it would be false.

Don't get me wrong: I was certainly told to sit down and shut up during my childhood. Repeatedly, in point of fact. In my very early youth, I was a talker, a mover, a smiler. I was a charming toddler, always asking ever-so-slightly intrusive questions of total strangers and winning them over with toothy grins and slightly-above average verbal skills. Not everyone was charmed, as you might imagine, particularly not in institutional settings. Daycare workers both loved and hated me; so did teachers.

So I was told to sit down and shut up. Repeatedly.

But I was also encouraged, with gentle prods. Every time someone answered a question of mine I was emboldened to ask another one. Every time I smiled at a stranger on the street and they smiled back, I was fortified to do it again.

Further, I doubt that the impatience I was up against had as much to do with my gender as it did with a general fatigue at dealing with a willful and noisy child. I'd have faced much the same reaction (I think) if I'd been male.

But then I ponder that sentence, and I'm not so sure. How would I know what would have happened if I'd been a boy? I don't. I certainly don't recall watching boys get treated differently than I for similar behavior, but I was a narcissistic little thing. I may not have noticed anyone else, boy or otherwise. And I certainly find that as I got older, there was a unique sort of pressure I faced as a a person with tits and a snatch.

Then again, people with cocks and balls faced pressures that I didn't have to deal with.

So how do we sort through all the various layers of pressure to determine whether gender has a significant impact on anything in our lives?

I will never go so far as to deny that being female has shaped my psyche, but I have no idea how my gender has affected my perception. Further, I'm uncomfortable apportioning any particular foible to gender, because there are so very many things that go into making someone crazy that it feels like a cop out to point to something so big, obvious, and unchangeable as the naughty bits one was born with.

I do play dumb. I do play weak. But I'm hesitant to say I do it because I'm female. It's effective because I'm female, and if it weren't effective, I would probably stop doing it, but I don't think my gender was the original impetus for trying weakness as a manipulation tactic. I think there are probably other, much more complicated and personal reasons for that particular development.

And, in all seriousness, what does a little weakness hurt? Who is hurt if I let the guy at the pizza place hold the door open for me? Who does it hurt if I let the guy walk me to my car because it's dark and I'm alone? No one. Everyone likes to feel useful, myself included. On an evolutionary level, we've segregated this usefulness in many ways, one of which is by gender: men are providers and women are caretakers. Since my natural inclinations are toward caretaking anyway, why shouldn't I play along with the role social pressure pushes me into?

And then, of course, I wonder if caretaking isn't my natural inclination at all, merely what I've taken on myself because of those pressures. Are the messages I receive really so insidious that they've steeped through my subconscious to my core without my even noticing?

I have no idea. I'd like to think not, and so I will operate as if such a thing has not occured.

But there is always a nagging feeling of doubt, a whisper I can't quite get rid of.

If I lived in a gender-neutral world, would I be the same person? I'm uncomfortable with the question because on the whole I like myself. I like who I am. But to ask this question posits that there may possibly be a better version of myelf out there, one I can't access because of the subtle conditioning I've been subjected to.

I hate this idea, and I'll deny that it has any real validity for a variety of reasons, including my extreme distaste for anything that smacks of predestination or fate.

But I'm intellectually honest enough (occasionally) to wonder in my heart of hearts: What if?

What if, indeed.

Skewed.

I woke up one morning last week, and my perspective was crooked.

It's been askew ever since.

Two paths lie before me, two paths through the world, and I can see each of them, simultaneously, with crystalline precision. The colors and textures of each road lay before me, tantalizingly full and rich. I can smell and taste and feel each way ahead with perfect clarity.

One eye is trained on each option, assessing, seeking. And each of my eyes have learned to operate independent of the other. They do not see in tandem, anymore; rather, each one is complete unto itself. Like the tracks that stretch before me, each of my eyes is wholly cut off from the other. There is no place where the paths meet, or cross, or where one could move from one to another.

No, once I set foot on either of these paths, the other will be lost.

Neither path is without darknesses, without those places where the trees grow tall and thick and gnarled, where branches overhang and scrape the ground and whether or not you make it past them will depend on your flexibility. I can see the difficulties.

But I can't tell how long the dark places stretch, or how quickly the difficulties arise. I can't tell how long those bucolic sunlit scenes that beckon to me last. I can see happiness and I can see sadness, but I don't know when or how much.

It's the combination of your two eyes, you see, that allow you to percieve such things, and I no longer have one pair of eyes, I have two eyes. I have two eyes.

This is why my perspective is skewed. This is why I cannot move forward, this is the source of my paralysis.

I can see two different versions of my best self.

How can I possibly choose between them?

I keep bumping into things in the here and now, because my eyes are divorced from each other. I keep banging the tender parts of myself into harsh corners and sharp edges because I can't tell where I end and where the world begins.

Switching off.

Much has been written about the amount of connectedness we have in this brave new digital world. Cell phones, smartphones, text messages, facebook, twitter all enable us to keep in more or less constant contact with the people and institutions in our lives.

Most people find this indispensible, and simultaneously obnoxious. "Unplugging" is as hip as iPhones, but everyone still has their iPhone. Or BlackBerry. Or Droid. Or laptop. Or basic mobile telephone.

The point is, we live in a world where getting in touch with someone is easy, instantaneous, and can be accomplished from anywhere. This is has fundamentally changed the way we view interaction. When you call someone on a cell phone, the expectation is that they're going to answer. It is a cell phone, designed to be with you at all times.

Twenty years ago, when you tried to call someone, they may or may not have been home. And if they weren't, you shrugged your shoulders and tried again some other night, or afternoon, or whatever.

But a cell phone is always with you, and it has caller ID and a call log in addition to voicemail, text messages, and picture capabilities. So, you call someone, and they know who's calling. They then make a conscious choice to pick up the phone or not, which is it's own can of worms. And then if they don't answer, there's a record of that fact that you called, when, whether you left a message.

This makes the phrase "sitting around by the phone" both obsolete and replete with new meaning. There's no reason to stay home waiting for a call these days, because your phone is with you. So you never have to sacrifice to stay in touch. But on the flip side, you know damn well whether or not that call you were waiting for ever came in. You can't distract yourself by going out and having a good time, because the phone comes with you. So you can sit around by the phone, while ostensibly out having a good time.

Way to kill girls' night, cell phone. Thanks a lot.

Let's not even touch on the politics of call frequency, message frequency, text frequency. I often feel like I don't really know those rules well enough to function in the world; I'm often accused of being overeager.

But what really gets me is how much I, personally, have invested in my phone.

My phone is a gauge of how much I am loved.

You laugh, but I'm perfectly serious.

My phone tells me how often and how ardently people want to get in touch with me. My phone tells me if someone is reminded of me by some occurrence in their day.

When several hours go by without my phone beeping at me even once, I feel unloved. I feel unconnected. I feel as if I matter to no one, no one at all in the entire world. No one's thinking about me, I am affecting no one, no one gives a damn.

This is patently, ridiculously unhealthy. I realize this. Not getting phonecalls, text messages, emails, facebooks or what-have-you does not mean I am not loved. But not getting them certainly does have an incredible, immediate and negative impact on my self-esteem.

But I don't know, exactly, how to tackle this one. Should I give up my phone? Should I live without a cell phone? Should I downgrade to something extremely basic? (Hello, Jitterbug!) Or is that just getting rid of the symptom without actually tackling the disease? Why do I put so much emphasis in whether or not other people are trying to contact me? Why do I want to be so important to people that they tell me random, ridiculous things whenever they occur?

Why am I so NEEDY? GAWD.

But seriously, I'm at a loss. I realize that I have to change something, because being hurt because I'm not getting enough electronic interaction is ridiculous, but I don't know what. Or how.

Miscellany and other hodgepodge

1.

I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World last night, and while I was marvelously entertained and giggling maniacly throughout the film, the ending left me more than a little deflated, and also a touch offended. The whole premise of the movie, right, is that in order to date the girl of his dreams, Mr. Pilgrim has to defeat her 7 evil exes. (Not ex-boyfriends. Exes.) There's all manner of fun video-game hilarity along the way, some pretty chuckle-worthy band-geek humor, and the whole thing is very visually appealing.

And, for the first 6 exes, Mr. Pilgrim's need to fight them is just an interesting plot device. The girl in question (Ramona, which I had forgotten is really a pretty awesome name) has moved on from all of these men, learned her lessons, is over it.

But then we get to the last one. This one has some sort of creepy hold over her (she just can't control herself around him) that's explained in the film as a mind-control chip he's implanted in the nape of her neck. She leaves our hero for this guy, despite not really wanting him and thinking he's a creep. He treats her more like a pet than a girlfriend. At one point he's actually PETTING HER HAIR IN PUBLIC as she sits TWO STEPS BELOW HIM on his throne-like pyramid, wearing what looks suspiciously like a dog collar from a distance and with the most wooden, unhappy expression on her face you've ever seen. (Shades of Star Wars, anyone?)

In short, this guy is every creepy, controlling, bordering-on-abusive boyfriend that every girl has had at least one of.

And Scott Pilgrim defeats him. Not Ramona. Scott Pilgrim. He forever robs her of the chance to face her demons, figure out why she was ever attracted to this creep, and then cut him out of her life HERSELF. This is the point of bad relationships: so we can learn. And she doesn't get to, because Our Hero Scott Pilgrim takes it on himself to DO IT FOR HER. Equally creepy and controlling, for the record.

And then, as my friend (who is male, which I only bring up because it's interesting that he was most offended by the end because of how it left the male lead and I was most offended by how it left the female lead) pointed out, after all the personal growth that Mr. Pilgrim experiences while fighting Ramona's evil exes, he turns around and walks off into the starry morning with her. The whole point of personal growth is you MOVE THE FUCK ON. And, instead, he walks off into fantasy land with a woman who is now, for all intents and purposes, permanently broken. Obviously, his personal growth was a sham. All that warm fuzzy shit about "self-respect" that allows him to defeat Ramona's one TRULY evil ex is a lie. He's still just a pud trying to get in her pants using whatever means necessary.

So, great movie, until the last 15 minutes. I would like to completely rewrite the ending.

2.

I never thought I (or anyone else, for that matter) would ever utter this sentence, but WHY didn't I get a degree in something useful like Nonprofit Management?

Seriously. There's a job available here in Milwaukee with an awesome, awesome organization that I would be GREAT at, but I don't have the degree or the experience. Because I didn't do something useful in college. Like nonprofit management.

Perhaps this is just an expression of my subconscious need to move and travel, because I have been at this job for 18 months now and that's a long time in my life, but I really, really, REALLY wish that I had a shot at this job. I would like to move on, and this is perfect. Fundraising? Development? Event coordination? These are all the things that I am fucken fantastic at. And, you know, Urban Ecology Center. Great people, great mission, something I can really get behind and sink my teeth into.

Also, I need new challenges. See above re: 18 months/travel.

3.

Personal revelations of the week: I am ridiculous and also impatient and also hopelessly, incurably romantic and girly. Don't let the snide and snarky veneer fool you.

In Defense of Emotional Adolescence

I think I've developed some trust issues to go along with my intimacy issues.

While I think this is decently revelatory, considering my epic and on-going battle against the cynicism of the wider world, apparently it's not. The exact quote from a friend of mine who I made this revelation to yesterday:

"Of course you have? I mean, shit. You'd be a little dense not to have put up some walls."

I find this heartbreaking. Not for her; cynicism works for her. It doesn't work so well for me. Cynicism makes me bitter, nasty, small-minded and downright mean. I don't like being any of these things. I want to love the world, the whole world, every shining, beautiful, dark and dirty part of it. I want to be a good person. I want to make life better.

Life is hard for a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. You laugh, but I'm serious. It's hard. It's hard to care so much, to want to share so much, and end up with egg all over your face. Or, something that has a somewhat egg-white-esque consistency.

What? Was that dirty? Get out of the gutter.

It's difficult for me to acknowledge that I don't really trust anyone's motives and intentions anymore. I'm endlessly concerned with why someone is doing something: do they like me, does he just want in my pants, is she just trying to figure out if I'm a threat to her? I throw that last one in there for the sake of balance, but really, this is about dating. This is about men.

I don't trust you, penises. You're wily little buggers. Slippery snakes, if you'll pardon the alliterative allusion.

And despite the generalized life-angst I feel when I realize that I don't trust people anymore, there's a really very specific set of issues that come with not trusting those people that you're into dating, whatever that subset may be. Men. Women. Dwarves. Whatever.

Insecurity. Oh my god, is insecurity a killer. Insecurity will kill attraction faster than bad poetry. No joke. You might think that nothing kills attraction faster than a few bad sonnets, but you would be WRONG. Insecurity unleashes "the crazy" on the relationship. Insecurity makes you question motives and actions, not just the other person's, but your own AND the other person's interpretation of your own. This leaves you doing things like calling and/or texting all the goddamn time because you just have to explain yourself. And then explain your explanation. And then apologize for being so persistent. And then explain your continued persistence.

Ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Attraction is based on mystery, you see. It's based on that thrill of the unknown. This is why people together for years have such a hard time maintaining their sex lives. Without any mystery, the attraction disappears. And without attraction, well, fucking just isn't any fun.

Luckily for me, I'm a chameleon. And a crazy person. So there will always be mystery.

I jest.

Ok, I sort of jest.

Attraction is based on mystery, and constant contact makes mystery impossible. Not only that, constant contact is annoying. It reeks of attention-whoring, it screams for validation. And when you're an emotional adolescent (like me!) two of the things you would desperately like to get from a partner are attention and validation. Preferably a steady stream, with a strong current of flirtatiousness.

Recap: I have trust issues. I don't like this in a generalized way, but I particularly don't like it when it comes to dating because mistrust in love leads to insecurity which leads to crazy.

In discussing this with another friend of mine, the necessity of wearing flame-retardant gloves after one's been burned a few times came up. (By the way, great tag line for a public ad campaign about using condoms.)

And this is where we really, really butt up against my emotional adolescence. I don't want to wear flame-retardant gloves. Being closed off to the world, barriering myself against it, is not something I ever want to do. It hurts to be vulnerable, but I really, REALLY don't like the alternatives. And this is the crux of why having developed trust issues is so bothersome to me, personally. It shows me that despite my best efforts, despite my active desire to remain open to the world and capable of showering love on everyone I meet, I'm becoming a cynic. I'm strapping on the armor and approaching every day as a battle to be lost or won. I'm protecting myself without meaning to.

And everyone's right, and I've got every reason to do so, to which my response is a (very mature) fuck that noise. This isn't what I want to be. Nah-nah-na-boo-boo, la-la-la, I can't hear you. And it's about as effective as slamming the door on your parents when you're 13.

Self-preservation is a bitch.

Can't we all just get along?

I've been a parental roll, lately. I suppose a solid four days off of work spent with my kid will do that to me.

But, it's been an enlightening (and awesome, for a variety of reasons) few days.

First, there I was, washing the dishes with my parents, and explaining to them the meaning of the new vernacular "helicopter parent." My dad got it immediately: he sees them every day on the playground when he takes G. He, himself, is a very hands-off parent. So hands-off that his theory of childrearing has been lovingly nicknamed "benign neglect" by my sisters and me. Or maybe he made that one up himself; I honestly don't remember.

So anyway, Dad gets it. My mom needs a little more explaining. She's the type that totally would have been one of these parents if a) the technology had been available and b) my dad hadn't been around to point out how silly she was being. But she does get it eventually, because when I get into the stories of parents calling their kids' college professors and employers (or again), the lightbulb goes on.

Then Dad and I backtrack and explain to her how the whole thing starts when a kid is two and you don't let them climb on the playground equipment without holding your hand. Literally. Two-year-olds that can't climb up to the slide.

There's a great article in Time (or at least, on their website) that touches very briefly on the benefits of allowing kids their space, their messes, their sneakiness. The author is referring to teenagers and adolescents, but I think that it applies to the little ones, too, in a way. Letting G throw the egg cartons around the dining room, and then explaining to her that she has to pick them up (and helping her do so, because she is, after all, TWO) is a valuable lesson. And if I didn't let her make the mess, she'd not learn it.

This is something my father understands instinctively, and I credit him with passing that knowledge on to me. Maybe it's part of the genes he gave me, or maybe it's that his upbringing did me so much good, but really, I think he's right on this one.

On the other hand, there's so much that we put into parenting these days, and how competitive it is, and how very rigid we get with our notions of what a good parent is and does. I cannot tell you how many shocked looks I get just walking down the street with mine. Do our unshod feet bother you that much? Or is that when she stops in the middle of the sidewalk and asks to do yoga, I lead her through a sun salutation or a triangle pose? Or perhaps it's listening to me explain to her that people often use the word "ironic" when they mean something more like "coincidental" or "serendipitous."

This offends people, apparently. I'm sorry. If you don't want me to lecture my two-year-old about the proper use of ironic, START USING IT CORRECTLY.

Oh, but that's not where I was going with this.

TOLERANCE. My point is tolerance. There's a lovely article on Salon about the dangers of rigidity and intolerance. Do we really need to make something as terrifying as being responsible for the growth and development of a human being into a contest? Are our tribal instincts so overpowering that we must throw to the wolves anyone that doesn't conform to our worldview? Or, childview. Whichever.

It's ridiculous. I'll do the best I can, and so will you, and I guarantee you that your best and my best do not look anything like each other. And that's cool, honestly. I may think helicopter parents are kind of sick, but maybe there is something to the whole "security" argument. Still, I couldn't pull it off. Not my style, and I'd be miserable, and if there's one thing I think almost anyone would agree with it's this:

Miserable parents raise miserable kids.

So be happy.

And let's all cut each other some slack, yeah? Sounds great.

I was born for this.

A few months back, someone told me that I was the most dramatic person he knew.

I scoffed, of course. And balked. Me? Dramatic?

You must be joking. I'm totes down-to-earth. I'm the chillest of girls-next-door. I'm the anti-drama.

Yeah, you can stop laughing now. I realize how defensive I'm being.

I *am* dramatic. I was born for drama. I was born to live through a war, a foreign occupation, an apocalypse, the gosh-darn Second Coming. Take your pick. I'll take any of them.

I was born for the long silences. I was born to inhabit a world with more time to think than anyone knows what to do with, and more work to do than can possibly leave time for thought. I was born to gaze at empty horizons and listen to wind whistle, unimpeded by voices. I was born for those moments when time and the spinning of the world stops and you can hear the pulse in someone's throat, the closing of a door down the street, a dog barking in the park.

I was born for the meaningful gazes, for the mindless chatter that covers up those gazes. I was born for Austen's repressed Regency or Chang's occupied Shanghai. I was born for Bombay after the British left, London in the late '30s, Kyoto in the '40s. I was born for Paris during WWII. I was born for Johannesburg when Mandela was coming to power, or Elroy's Los Angeles. I was born for Catherine's court, or for Rabat's Terror.

I was born to play these roles. Elizabeth Bennett, Wang Chia Chi, Nitta Sayuri, Anne Boleyn, Mary Magdalene: I was made for these archetypes. I was born for intrigue. I revel in betrayal. I delight in picking apart the personality and piecing together the puzzle. I was born to stand immobile in the face of unyielding pressure.

I am the most ridiculous of drama queens. And I love it.

Consider this my resignation.

I am resigning from the human race. I'm done being a good person.

Effective immediately.

So, the next time you want me to care about something, you'd better pull out your big guns. A text message isn't going to cut it. A phone call probably won't, either.

No, if you want me to care, you're going to have to show up on my doorstep, in the rain, soaking wet and probably catching pneumonia as you stand there and plead with me. Kneeling in a puddle that is six inches deep will not be going too far.

Visual aids are required. You must produce your crazy friend/injured cat/broken down car/alcoholic family IN PERSON. If they are not present, you can forget about getting anything from me. My heartstrings will not be tugged.

And really, because it's me, I want eloquence. I want simple, powerful prose that tells me whatever story you want to tell effectively. This means that you must choose the correct words, they must make sense, and they must be strung together properly. Any attempts at overblown alliteration/assonance/rhyme will be laughed at and mocked mercilessly. Likewise for grammatical errors, pronunciation errors and any other error I may think of as you beg me for compassion.

I have no mercy, world. I'm done with it. It's useless.

My conscience is in effective stasis. It will not be making any more appearances in this life. I will feel no guilt while I stare at you with steely eyes and joke about your dead babies, your health problems, your broken hearts.

I am a statue. I am stone. Nothing touches me, and nothing ever will, until I'm finally worn down by the nature of the world that kills us all.

Trying asking the rain for understanding. You might have better luck.

Jeux d'enfants

I watched a movie last night that I've been putting off watching. I was concerned about what this particular film would do to my rather delicate emotional equilibrium.

And good lord, was I right.

You know what I'm talking about. Those movies that you watch and think the entire time, "This was me. This could have been me. This could still be me."

It's unsettling, particularly when there's death, dismemberment and/or epic romance involved.

I think that the movie is supposed to be a cautionary tale against the dangers of the adrenaline rush, of the relationship that pushes you to ever-greater heights of outrageousness, that pushes you past caring about anything other than "What next? What now?" I mean, they do end up dead, buried together under a ton of concrete. And while the end of the movie flashes back through all the choices they could have made and shows them happy together, the fact remains they didn't make those choices and spent their adult lives completely miserable.

It's romanticized and beautifully filmed, but still, I think it's supposed to make you realize how unhealthy those kinds of relationships are.

Too fucking bad.

Have you ever played a sustained game of truth or dare with someone? Where you didn't get to pick whether you gave a truth or did a dare, but the other person did? One in which you had to finish the game?

I have.

"Buy a plane ticket, right now." No money, no job. Do it anyway.

"Pick me up in a company car." Could get fired, and who else is going to hire someone with a criminal record a mile long? Do it anyway.

"Lay in Anne Boleyn's bed."

"Fuck me in the choir loft of Temple Church."

"Roll this joint on the train so we can smoke it as soon as we get to the car."

"Let my spastic American ass drive your car through London traffic."

"Would you let me cut your feet off?"

"Would you teach me to fight?"

"Would you wait for me, if I got sent away again?"

And on. And on. And on.

And all the movie made me realize was how much I miss it. No one plays enough anymore. Everyone takes things too seriously, and not the right things. Even me. I've lost it. I've lost that absolute confidence, that unshakeable direction, that true north.

Now I'm ordinary.

Sex Appeal

Everyone has a "type" that they attract. Mine has always been "unavailable men." Usually, this takes the form of married men, but I've had a few "emotionall unavailable" thrown in there for fun, as well as the requisite number of "distance relationships."

But, married men love me. They flock to me. I have, at any given time, a veritable stable of them paying me sly compliments. I have always thought this is because I am a good flirt: I am playful, but I know where to draw the line, and how forcefully to draw it. This makes me fun, but invariably safe. I am not going to allow anyone to fall in love with me; I am not going to fall in love with anyone. I am not going to push things any farther than simple flirtation, ever.

As a side note, my problem with the "emotionally unavailable" has always stemmed from the fact that I will fall in love with them, and want them to reciprocate, because they should be available, and so I don't follow the strictures I usually place myself under. They, then, of course do not fall in love with me, and all manner of heartache ensues.

I like this explanation. It says that there's nothing inherently wrong with me, that I attract married men like flies. It's even pretty flattering of both my skill with manipulation and my self-control.

And who doesn't like a good ego-stroke, even if it is self-administered?

But I've been faced with the possibility lately that this explanation may be complete horseshit.

Certainly, the fact that I'm "safe" is probably the root of the reason that I seem to have so many married or otherwise involved or unavailable admirers. But my safety may have nothing to do with anything I consciously do or not do.

I may just be sexually unappealing. Period. Full stop.

It fits just as well. I'm good with words, I'm occasionally very witty, and I can be a lot of fun to be with. At the same time, lack of sex appeal would make me undeniably safe.

It also works with some of the more disastrous of my relationships. My ex-husband, for example, never wanted to lay a finger on me amorously. I always attributed this to his hang up, considering the other issues we faced. But maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was, in fact, me. My very first serious relationship was with a man when I was a senior in high school, and we didn't have sex for the last three months of our time together. I have always thought that that was because I stopped wanting to have sex with him, but maybe it was mutual.

And then there's the nebulous and hazy baby daddy. We had a very intense relationship, but we were very far apart for most of it. Perhaps ultimately he abandoned me because while our correspondence was intense and enlightening and thought-provoking and full of all manner of wonderful discovery and sparkling dialog, there was no corresponding physical spark.

It's an interesting possibility. And I say "interesting" in the most euphemistic way possible. Intellectually, it's interesting. Personally, it's pretty devastating.

Just A Man

Genevieve's father has been on my mind a lot recently. There is more than one reason why this might be. Certainly another failed attempt at a relationship will call him to mind, but I think that it's rather this incident:

Genevieve likes to play in "Mama's room." We go up to the attic, I sit on my bed with a book or a magazine or a newspaper and play music on the BlackBerry, and she runs around, pulling things out of drawers and off of shelves and hangers. Sometimes I don't read like I'm supposed to; sometimes I watch her frenetic activity, driven to fever pitch by the sheer delight of playing around in "Mama's tings."

I keep a picture of Jim in my nightstand. It used to be on the nightstand, but when he disappeared, I moved it into the drawer and there it has stayed. I hadn't actually thought about it in quite some time.

Last week, my little girl found the picture. It was buried amongst the accumulated detritus of a year and a half, but she found it. She is nothing if not tenacious. I was actually reading, this day, so when she held up the picture and announced loudly, "Picture of man!" I had to look up to see what she was talking about.

My breath caught. I literally could not breath in for a full five seconds. She brought the picture back down, so she could study it again. She did so for a good length of time. Then she looked back up at me and said, "Just a man."

And then she tossed the picture to the side.

I burst into tears. I couldn't help it. Genevieve was incredibly startled; she climbed up on the bed, leaned against my back, and stroked my hair and exhorted me "No sad, Mama. No cry."

I'm the mother-of-the-year. Letting my not-yet-two-year-old comfort me.

I did pull myself together pretty quickly (for me, anyway) but he's definitely been on my mind since.

Something I've never really told anyone: I'm not actually sure I know anything about the man. I was deeply, completely, hopelessly, helplessly in love with him, and I realize now that I might not even know his real name. That's the real reason I've not made any serious attempts to find him. I did quite a bit of investigating on my own, a year and a half ago, and what I discovered rocked the foundations of my world.

His house, might not be his house. His name, might not be his name. I may know nothing true about the man whose DNA composes half the genetic material of my child.

I may have been quite thoroughly duped. He may be sitting somewhere, laughing to himself about how easy that dumb American girl was. It is a possibility I can no longer fully ignore. I'd like to think that if he is out there somewhere, he feels some pang of regret for what he did. To that end, I do still email him once a month (or, maybe once every other month) with a few pictures and some choice anecdotes.

This unbroken stream of unreturned communication has turned him into something of a priest, or a god, for me. I confess my sins to him. It's something I always did; he always did know all my secrets. But this is different. I have no expectation of ever hearing from him again. He is a non-entity, but one I still feel immeasurably close to. I tell him everything now without hesitation, without remorse, without anything at all except relief. Knowing that he can never, never pass judgment on me because of what he's done, I feel absolved after each of these missives.

I imagine this is how people feel when they talk to God. Or go to confession. I do neither, these days, but I do email my daughter's father.

A Mini Me.

While I may still be a little apprehensive of this whole motherhood thing, I must confess: I love my baby.



She's not really a baby anymore, which might account for the outpouring of affection I feel for her at this particular juncture. She's a toddler now, a tiny little person, with enough personality for something 10 or 15 times her size. And it's a personality I like.



My baby is brash and assertive and fearless. She runs, she jumps, she climbs, she recites at the top of her lungs without the least hint of timidity or caution.



My father is the one that spends the most time with her, and he took her to the playground last week. The weather is finally getting warm enough for that to be a pleasant experience again. Thank god. This child needs about the same amount of space a wild horse needs to be truly happy.

Anyway, they're at the park, and she's on the swings, swingingswingingswinging and giggling with delight. When, all of a sudden, her giggles give way to spontaneous recitation. At the top of her lungs, while her grandpa continues to push her in rhythm, my not-yet-two-year-old (apparently) recited her alphabet (only missing three or four letters) and the first two verses of "Rock-a-bye Baby In A Treetop" (without missing a word).

What. The. Hell.

According to my father, other parents within earshot stood agape. I don't blame them; I would have, too. (I have since had the pleasure of hearing her recite "Rock-a-bye Baby In A Treetop." It is a thing to be hold, I'll have you know.)


And I believe the alphabet bit of the story, too, after this weekend. We get home from grocery shopping, we're putting the groceries away. My mom is having a medical test done this week and she's going to be on a broth-and-jello diet for few days, so we bought lots of Jell-o. Lots. We never have Jell-o in the house.

Genevieve has never seen a box of jello before. But she picked one up and announced to me (again, at the top of her lungs- we're still working on the "inside voice" concept) that is was "jelly."

I think my jaw actually dropped.

Yeah, she got it wrong, but she was damn close. SHE'S NOT TWO YET.

What. The. Hell.

My baby is brash and fearless. My baby takes no prisoners, asks for what she wants (ok, she demands it, but we're working on needs first, manners second), likes to be read to, dances, and has begun to try to sing along with me when I sing nursery rhymes at her. This is a child that I can get into.

And she's sweet. Despite the brashness and the boldness and the demanding, she's so incredibly loving. We've been dog-sitting for a friend's black lab; her and the dog have become fast friends. She has spent the last 24 hours announcing that "Moonpie needs a hug" and then proceeding to walk up the dog, wrap her arms around whatever part she can get to, and lay her had on Moonpie's back. She does it with particular alacrity whenever Moonpie cries, which is frequently, since she's been dumped in this strange house for the weekend.

Her empathy takes my breath away.

She knows when I need a hug, too. And she usually brings tears to my eyes when she wraps both her little arms and her little legs around me and squeezes and tells me "Don't be sad, Mama."

Indeed. What on earth do I have to be sad about? I have the best little girl in the world.

Work-in-Progress

I am a work-in-progress. There's nothing at all complete or finished or polished about me. I say the wrong things at the wrong times, I stay out too late, I don't get enough sleep, I can be unbelievably crass and at other times inexcusably thoughtless. I let go too easily, or else I hang on too long.

Most notably, I make the same mistakes, over and over and over again. Each time, it feels like a new mistake. But it's not. It's the same one, dressed up in new packaging so my poor pathetic and remarkably insecure head can fool itself into thinking that it's not about to do a real number on my long-suffering heart, who always seems to bear the brunt of these mistakes I make.

(If my body parts were relationship archetypes, my head would be the wife beater and my heart the battered wife. Right down to my head always telling my heart, "This is your fault. You deserve this." No joke. Ha.)

But I do. I make the same mistake, time and time again. I think that if I care enough, someone will care about me. I think that if I can just give enough, I'll get something back. In a far less positive light, you might say that I have a tendency to attach to anyone that shows me the least affection. God knows why, but I seem to be starved for attention. I just want someone to notice me, care, and continue to do so in perpetuity.

Isn't that what love is?

But this is not about love. I don't want to talk about love. Talking about love is like dancing about architecture.

This is about my eager-puppy syndrome, the one that keeps coming back after it's been kicked. This is about my attention-whorish bids for attention when I'm feeling down. This is about the fact that I seem to have no boundaries. I will give anyone whatever they ask of me, if they just hint that they might, at some point, maybe, in the future, reciprocate.

That's just bad business sense, right there. Can you believe I work in accounting? I can't. It's a good thing I don't set policy, just balance accounts. We'd be bankrupt.

I am bankrupt. I've given away so much for nothing but IOU's that turned out to be not worth the ink they were written with. I've given away huge chunks of my heart, of my self-respect, of my energy. And I don't really have enough left any more to cover my responsibilities. I am emotionally bankrupt. Also exhausted.

But how does one unlearn the behavior patterns of a lifetime? I don't even know where they come from; I got plenty of love and affection and attention as a child. I was not an abused youth.

How do I unlearn this impulse to give and give and give and hope that someday it'll come back to me? How do I forget everything I believe about karma and do unto others? And do I really want to?

No.

Why don't the rest of you join my world. Because, while I may be occasionally needy and while I may be occasionally childish and while I may occasionally display a level of immaturity that shocks the senses, we would all be much better off if we all gave instead of taking, if we all sometimes or even often did things without having a firm expectation of reciprocation in mind.

A little naivete goes a long way towards making the world better.

Riding the Rollercoaster

I've been sick lately. I don't know what's up with that, but for a solid month, maybe even a month and a half, I've been unable to eat hardly anything. My stomach is constantly doing flip-flops, I feel nauseous, and the smell of most food is enough to make me sit and push it around my plate rather than consuming it.

This has been great for my appearance. I'm down to 128 pounds. Only eight more to go, and I'll have gotten where I've been trying to get for five years. I think this is the first time I've been under 130 since I was just barely pubescent.

And everywhere I go, people ask me, "Have you lost weight? You look fantastic!"

It's very gratifying to my ego.

On the other hand, none of my clothes fit. The jeans I bought less than six month ago? Falling off. The great taffeta party skirt? Requires a belt. My cincher belt? Slips and slides around. And I don't currently have the funds to replace the entirety of my wardrobe. I did just go to Mexico.

Also, I feel ILL all the time.

Every moment of every day is a little battle not to pass out, vomit or just put my head down and cry because it's exhausting to feel so crappy all the time. My head spins, my stomach dances and still, I have to concentrate on what I'm doing and get it done and smile while I do it, because it's now been so long that I just have to function regardless of how I feel.

I hate being sick. Generally, I take to my bed when I don't feel well, and don't get out until I feel good again.

But, I cannot be an invalid schoolgirl forever, and a month and a half in bed would not only be impractical given my life, I'd also probably have lost my mind from the boredom by now.

Who knows what's wrong? I certainly don't. All those ridiculously expensive tests they ran in the ER 5 months ago didn't tell anyone anything. The only way to find out is to subject myself to another battery of ridiculously expensive tests, and really, the upshot is that they might not tell anyone anything this time, either. Unless I'm actually in the grips of the severe cramps and the nausea and the heart palpitations when I go in, and that's hard to schedule. Even I, as German as I can be, know that much about bodily processes.

And, as always, I must consider the possibility that this is all psychosomatic.

More than most people, my mental and emotional state has effects upon my physical being. This is something I've struggled with for more than half my life: being upset makes me ill. Always has. I learned to control my temper as a child mostly so that I wasn't getting sick everywhere, at the drop of a hat. Crying gives me headaches, anger makes me nauseous, bliss leaves me light-headed and dizzy.

There are indications that perhaps this is nothing more than a response to extreme stress. The whole thing started when I was putting myself under a great deal of pressure for having lost Genevieve's father, and since then, it's flared up from time to time. I can correlate most of the major episodes with events that certainly were not pleasant to deal with.

However, this is has been ongoing and constant for some time now. And while I am more emotional than I was six months ago, that's as likely to be a consequence as a cause. Always feeling like I want to sit down and cry has made me more apt to actually sit down and cry.

And lately, there's certainly been a rollercoaster around. The ups and downs of it are unpredictable and numbing. Small wonder my stomach is doing flip-flops: it's being thrown around like a lacrosse ball, up and down and sideways without rhyme or reason. This is the point where I say to myself, "Get a grip and just get off the damn ride."

But I don't want to. Even if it is throwing me willy-nilly and bruising parts of myself that really can't take anymore abuse, rollercoasters are fun, too. The thrill and the danger and yes, even that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when it drops out are all pleasures of their own, to be savored.

And, I refuse to get off before the ride is over. Even sick, I'm stubborn as a bull.

Love and Mexico

I'm going to Mexico in two days.

This is the highlight of my year, and by "year" I mean the preceding 12-month period, not the short time that 2010 has been around.

There's this man, you see, this man that I'm almost certainly completely in love with, although I would never say that out loud. (Whoops. Did I do that?)

Anyway, there's this man, and he wanted to go somewhere warm. Before he takes off for London for three months. Which is it's own story. So he tells me... "I'm either going to Mexico, or Thailand. I want to go to Thailand by myself."

Then, the next day, he tells me he's going to Mexico. Then I tell him I'd love to come, but I don't want him to take it the wrong way. Because we're not dating, you see. We're both single. We're just friends. And he says ok, he won't, but that I should have my own reasons for going to Mexico.

Which I do. I mean, I haven't left the country since the Snugglebug was conceived, and I have a serious problem with wanderlust. Also, I live in Wisconsin, and I'm being offered a trip to Mexico in motherfucken January.

That right there is a reason to go, man or not.

But he's been down there for a week, now, and he's called me every day. Also, we spent the three days prior to his departure in pretty much constant company.

But we're not dating.

Last night, the idea that I should cancel my hostel reservation and just stay with him in this beach house that his friends have rented was floated.

But we're not dating.

Also we're going to spend the last couple of days of this trip in Cancun together. Alone.

But we're not dating.

Also I was awakened by my phone notifying me of a message yesterday at 5:30 in the morning. The message was, "I can't wait until you're here."

But we're not dating.

I am crawling out of my skin here, though. I had enough to keep me busy for the last week, getting ready to take a week off of work, then Gallery Night debauchery, then my parents' 25th anniversary party. But now I'm just... waiting. Waiting to go to Mexico. Waiting to find out whether being almost certainly completely in love with someone that is playing at being unavailable is going to pay off.

Now I have nothing to do but analyze the last week and wonder to myself whether I'm completely in over my head, and this man is just really good at playing me, or whether perhaps something has healed in him, between the move to London, the sunshine, the patience.

I have nothing to do but pore every word and every expression and every inflection and wonder what is going to happen.

He called me this morning, when he woke up. I am almost certainly completely and hopelessly in love.